by Ivy Adams
As she walked across campus, Mei weighed her options for the next eight weeks in this institution. She could suck it up and grow a thick skin—who cared if she had any friends, after all? That wasn’t what she was here for.
Or she could talk to the dean of student life, Furen Guong, about the fact that she wasn’t fitting in. But that was pretty much like admitting her “buddies” had completely dissed her, and she wasn’t quite ready to commit social suicide of that order yet.
Or, she could go home early. A lesser girl would call her mom and have a plane ticket FedEx’d stat. But failure wasn’t an option. Joneses didn’t fail. Besides, if she ran away, she’d never know the truth.
She’d picked this school instead of one in Beijing because it was in Liaoning Province. Shenyang was only a short train ride from Dalian, where the Social Welfare Institute (SWI) from which she’d been adopted was located.
No, she was going to stay here and stick it out whether the other girls liked it or not. And if she didn’t want to spend all her time in her room she was going to have to get focused. Dao-Ming and Bao might rule the school, but surely there was one person here who wasn’t under their spell. One rebellious teenager in all of Communist China. She decided that by the end of today she was going to find an ally. And then—
The next thing Mei knew she was flying through the air on a collision course with a large tree. She hit it hard enough to daze her, and as she sat there, trying to get her scrambled brain to work, she couldn’t help wondering if her fellow students had tired of nonconfrontational animosity and were now starting on actual physical violence.
She heard someone speak, but nothing made any sense. She glanced up, completely nonplussed—right into the eyes of the best-looking guy she’d seen since coming to this school.
He was kind of tall, but that could be because she was flat on her back and he was towering over her. His hair was longish, not cut short like so many of her classmates, and he had a small earring in the cartilage of one ear. As she stared at him, trying to gather her scattered wits, he popped his skateboard and rested it against his leg. She blinked, looked from the board to the earring to the hair and back again, and that’s when she knew. For once the universe had actually listened. She’d found her rebel.
Then he was squatting by her side, his dark eyes filled with a concern that warmed her. He spoke again, and again the words coming out of his mouth made no sense to her whatsoever. Finally her addled brain regained its senses and she realized he wasn’t speaking nonsense—just Mandarin.
“I speak English,” she said as clearly as she could manage.
He said something else, still in Mandarin, and she shook her head. “I don’t know what you’re saying.”
Recognition dawned on his face and he switched to barely accented English. “So, you’re the American exchange student that has Dao-Ming and Bao in such a tizzy.”
Mei pushed herself up into a sitting position. “Yep. That would be me.”
“I’m Guiran.” He held out a hand and she took it.
“I’m Mei Jones.”
“Look, I’m really sorry about running into you. I’m practicing some new tricks on my board and you walked right in front of me.”
So that’s what had hit her—a guy on a speeding skateboard. Amazing. It had felt more like an 18-wheeler.
“Sorry. I was … thinking.” Pouting was more like it, but he didn’t really need to know that, did he?
“I bet.” He was still holding her hand and it felt kind of strange—but in a good way. Of course, that could just be the fact that after two weeks here she was starved for some kind of decent human contact.
Either way, she resisted the urge to tug her hand away.
“Why do you say that?” she asked curiously, pulling at her uniform skirt—which she had just realized was hiked up to the top of her thighs.
“Here, let me help you.” Standing, he easily pulled her to her feet. “I just figure, if Dao-Ming is gunning for you, your life couldn’t be that easy right about now.”
“You have no idea.”
“Sure I do. It wasn’t that long ago that I was the new kid here.”
“Really?” she asked, fascinated. “You’re not from Shenyang?”
“Not exactly. We travel around a lot for my dad’s job, so for the most part I was raised outside of China. Now that we’re back—” He shrugged. “Now that we’re home, it isn’t as easy to fit in as I’d expected it would be.”
“Yeah. Believe me, I know what you mean.”
He glanced at the cafeteria, which was currently bustling with students—many of whom had seen her less-than-graceful fall. Mei felt her cheeks burn. Like she didn’t already have enough strikes against her, now she looked like a klutz, too.
“Were you going to eat?”
“Yeah.” She didn’t know why she felt awkward admitting it. “But it can wait—”
“No, you should go. If you don’t get in there soon, they won’t serve you.”
“I learned that the hard way.”
Guiran laughed. “Bummer.”
She didn’t want to leave him. How else could she cross off the one item on her to-do list? After all, she couldn’t count on fate to step in twice. It was now up to her. “Have you eaten already?” she asked.
“Nah. I’m waiting for my friends.”
“Oh, right.” Mei backed away, stumbling over a large tree root and nearly ending up on her butt for the second time in five minutes. Ducking her head to hide her total embarrassment, she said, “Well, it was nice to meet you. Good luck with the skateboarding trick.”
Could I have been any more stupid? she berated herself as she started up the cafeteria steps. Of course he didn’t want to eat with her—he already had friends.
She passed a group of girls who pointed and laughed. She ignored them as best she could, but it didn’t work. She couldn’t make her feet reach the top of the stairs. Instead she turned around and ran back to Guiran. “May I join you and your friends?”
He smiled. “Actually I just texted them. They’re running late. So if the invite is still open, I’d love to have dinner with you.”
She felt herself light up like the Fourth of July. Somebody liked her. Somebody wanted to spend time with her—even if it was just a quick dinner at the cafeteria. They walked through the double doors together, and as they got into line, she was incredibly conscious of the fact that half the school was staring at them. “Although, I’m not sure what having dinner with me will do to your reputation.”
“Don’t worry about me. I can take it.”
“Oh yeah? So you think you’re bad to the bone, do you?”
“I try,” he answered, pretending to buff his nails against his jacket. As he guided her through the line, cracking jokes, she felt herself relax a little. Feeling optimistic for the first time since she’d gotten to the school, Mei reached for a dish of who-knows-what. Big surprise—every meal was an adventure in gastronomical distress.
“Oh, not that!” Guiran put out a hand to stop her. “Unless you like overspiced octopus?”
Ugh. Octopus. Was that what she’d tried to choke down the night before? “Not really.” She glanced at the remaining choices. “I can’t read much Mandarin yet, so I don’t know what any of this is. Do you have suggestions?”
He studied her. “Do you trust me?”
“Sure.”
“That was quick.”
“Well, you already threw me against a tree. I’m not sure what you could do in here that would be worse.”
“Hmm. Good point.” He leaned across her to reach for something and his shoulder brushed against her upper arm. “Here. Try these.” He placed two dishes on her tray.
“What are they?”
“One’s beef and one’s fish. But they both taste good, I promise.”
“I believe you.”
They worked their way through the serving line, then Guiran snagged a small table for them against the windows at the back of the ca
feteria.
The cut-stone and glass buildings of the campus surrounded an intricately designed and manicured garden. In the evenings, lamps along the concrete paths highlighted huge pieces of contemporary sculpture. It certainly wasn’t the sloped tile roofs and gilded lions “Mulan” had expected, and again she was hit by how incongruous her preconceived notions of China had been.
She picked up her first bite with her fingers, popped it in her mouth and chewed gingerly, then smiled at the pleasant taste.
“You like it?” he asked with a wide smile that put her further at ease.
“I do, actually.”
“Good.” He started in on his own food.
Silence stretched between them for a few minutes as they ate. When she was finally full—or close to it—Mei focused on trying to make conversation. She searched for something to say, then remembered what Guiran had mentioned outside. “So, you weren’t raised in China?”
He paused, his chopsticks halfway to his mouth. “No. My parents left when I was three and we lived most of my life in Europe.”
“Where in Europe?” she asked.
“France and England. We also spent a year in Germany.”
“Wow. You’ve been all over.”
“Yeah.”
He looked distinctly uncomfortable, so she tried to change the subject. “I have a friend in Paris right now. She’s doing the same kind of exchange program I am.”
“Paris is a great place.”
He sounded so wistful she couldn’t help asking, “You don’t like China?”
“It’s not that. It’s just there are a lot of bad memories here. For my parents, I mean. It makes my mom sad to be back.”
“Why?”
His eyes were startled—and a little wary—when they looked into her own. “Are you always this forward?”
“No.” She paused, a little self-conscious as she realized she was lying. “Yes, I guess I am. I’m sorry. You don’t have to answer if you don’t want—”
“Well, you tell me. You’re a Chinese girl from America and your last name is Jones. You were adopted, right?”
“Yes.”
“A lot of Chinese girls are.”
That’s when it dawned on her—he might know more about her plight than she’d ever expected. She’d always focused on being the abandoned; she’d never thought about what it would feel like to be the one they kept.
“Do you know what happened to her, your sister?” she asked.
“No. My parents never said. But I assume she was adopted by Americans.”
“Like me,” Mei said quietly. “That’s why I came to China, to Shenyang, to find out about my birth parents. But now … I don’t know. Everything here is so overwhelming and I can’t figure out where to start, not to mention I can barely understand anyone or read anything. So maybe I came here for nothing.”
Could she get any more dramatic? A couple more minutes of this and she’d morph into Piper. But it felt so good to say it all out loud, to verbalize the fear and frustration she’d been having for weeks now. She took a really deep breath, filling her lungs. It seemed like she hadn’t been able to do that in weeks.
Guiran still hadn’t said a word, however, and he’d stopped eating altogether. Mei pushed around the last of the food on her plate with her chopsticks—another source of embarrassment for her. She felt like the only person here who longed for a fork.
Guiran’s nonresponse to her babbling made her even more self-conscious, and she worried she’d upset him.
Finally she asked, “Guiran? Are you okay?”
“Yes, I’m fine,” he said, tossing his head back to move the lock of dark hair that had fallen across one eye. “You know, I’ve wondered sometimes if my sister has ever come looking for us. If she thinks about my parents, and why they gave her up.” Sadness crept into his dark eyes again.
“I think all adoptees wonder about that at some point. But, at least for me, I’ve never been angry about it—I know my birth parents did what they felt they had to do.” She’d worked hard to bury any resentment she felt at being given up.
“I have wonderful loving parents, and I have a good life with them. I’m sure your sister does, too, Guiran.” She gave him a reassuring smile. After a moment, the corners of his mouth turned into a lopsided grin. Her stomach jumped a little and she hoped it was from his smile, and not a reaction to what she’d just eaten.
Then again, how dreadfully inconvenient. Here she’d planned to ignore all the IKC stuff. And now, for the first time since John, there was a guy she might want to kiss. On the other hand, for a girl who had been hoping not to become a leper thirty minutes before, she was getting a little ahead of herself.
“Okay,” Guiran said. “I’ll help you.”
“Help me what?” she asked, baffled.
“I’ll help you find your parents. If you have the information, I’ll do the translating and go with you to the SWI.”
“Really?” she asked, unsure what to make of his offer. “You would come with me?”
He shrugged. “Sure. It’s the least I can do to make up for running you over.”
“Thank you, Guiran.” Mei smiled. Suddenly, China didn’t seem so lonely.
“No problem. But, hey, before this goes any further, I have to ask. You don’t think there’s any chance we’re related, do you?”
Maybe she wasn’t the only one thinking about kissing. “How old are you?”
“I’m eighteen,” he answered. Oh, thank God. He was older than she was—there was no way she could be his sister.
“Good. No chance we’re related.” The sister his parents had given away would have to have been born before him.
As they got up to leave the table, she crossed off the first item on her mental to-do list and added a second. She’d found a friend. Now it was time to find her family.
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Chapter 13
Piper
Piper stumbled down the hallway in her pajamas, drawn to the kitchen by the amazing aroma of Marie’s special blend of coffee. Her mouth was actually watering for the rich, dark liquid, her brain screaming for the shot of caffeine it so desperately needed.
God, when am I going to get used to the late hours Simone keeps? she wondered as she turned the corner into the kitchen. Not that she was complaining. She loved every second of living and going to school in Paris, so much so that lately she’d been thinking of what a great university the Sorbonne was. But that didn’t make getting in at three a.m. after a long day of school any easier to bear—especially when L’Académie de Paris started at seven thirty in the morning.
But today was special. She’d been planning it for years, ever since she first became interested in art, and she wasn’t going to blow it by waking up too late to do everything that was on her list.
Thinking about the day she had planned, she was on autopilot as she cruised over to the very stylish coffeepot Marie had in the middle of the counter—and the ambrosia of the gods that was currently percolating away inside it. When she left here in seven weeks, she was taking an entire carry-on full of the stuff back home. And then she was going to ration it—only bring the coffee beans out on the most special of occasions. Because going the rest of her life without it just didn’t bear thinking about—and she so wasn’t sharing with her family.
She had just poured herself a cup, and brought it to her nose for a long, ecstasy-inducing sniff, when she heard someone else enter the kitchen. Figuring it was Marie or Simone’s dad, Gus, she turned with a quick smile, then froze as she took in the tall, dark, and absolutely gorgeous specimen of manhood staring at her, an overnight bag on his shoulder.
He was tall, really tall, and she wasn’t just saying that because she was in her bare feet. This guy would tower over her even in the very chic, very sexy five-inch-heeled boots she had spent way too muc
h money on while shopping with Simone the other day. He was also really muscular, unlike most of the guys she’d met here, a lot of whom would give a string bean a run for its money. His shoulders were wide, his chest broad, his biceps well-defined where they strained against the dark cotton of his T-shirt.
“You must be Piper.” His voice wrapped itself around her like a river of dark, warm caramel.
“I am.” She smiled at him and tried to remember if she had washed her makeup off before falling into bed a few hours before. “And you are … ?”
“Sebastian.”
Oh, right, of course. Simone’s absent brother. She could see the resemblance now—he had the same sapphire-blue eyes and ebony hair, but his was styled in a short, suave cut that emphasized his strong jaw, lush lips, and slightly scruffy day-old beard. For a second her fingers itched to sketch him, so much so that she shoved her hands into the pockets of her sweats to make sure she didn’t grab the closest napkin and give in to the impulse.
Her strange reaction bothered her, especially considering how perfect he seemed. Not just how he looked, but in the way Simone and his parents all but worshiped him. If she’d learned anything from Germaine it was that anyone who looked and sounded that good probably wasn’t. Too bad the lesson didn’t stop her heart from thudding painfully in her chest.
“Right.” She forced herself to smile. “Marie said something about you making it home this weekend.”
Sebastian nodded before leaning against the counter, ankles crossed in a pose so indolent, so self-assured, that she couldn’t help thinking he looked like a movie star—more than aware of his impact on the female half of the species, but determined to act as normal as possible under the circumstances.
“I’ve got midterms next week and it’s easier to study at home than in the dorm.” His voice was a little bored but the look in his indigo eyes was intense.
“I bet.” She took a sip of her coffee, searched for something to say even though she wanted nothing more than to flee back to her room and away from those eyes that seemed to catalogue everything about her. “What classes are you taking?”
“Basic first-year stuff, except I did manage to squeeze in a class on art history and one on sculpting.”
